Talk:Khazar myth/Archive1

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Citations

I wanna jack the cites from the TOW article, but they're all either pay to read, books, or out-of-print magazines, so I can't easily read them. Can somebody else do it?--"Shut up, Brx." 15:48, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

So... Anybody wanna support my laziness?--"Shut up, Brx." 01:24, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Are you guys really gone simply try to ignore that the Khazar hypothesis has now been proven beyond all doubt?! http://gbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/12/14/gbe.evs119.short?rss=1], [1], [2], and a very definitive AFP article dated January 16, 2013 "Gene study settles debate over origin of European Jews" If this page's title isn't changed from supposed "Khazar myth" to something like Khazar hypothesis, after Dr. Eran Elhaik's study, you guys just show how ridiculous you truly are! ^{— Unsigned, by: 71.81.126.31 / talk / contribs}

I'm citing Dr. Elhaik's own study [3] that says Ashkenazi Jews are of the following background: "Overall, our results portray the European Jewish genome as a mosaic of Caucasus, Western European, Middle Eastern, and Eastern European ancestries in decreasing proportions." And Dr. Elhaik says in his Haaretz interview with Ofer Aderet that this is small portion of Middle Eastern background (that comes far behind Khazarian/Caucasus background and Western European Roman Empire convert era background) "source is probably Mesopotamia". This could not possibly be more relevant! And why are guys also trying to block geneticist Dr. Avshalom Zoossmann-Diskin's October 2010 genetic study [4] saying that Ashkenazi Jews "are Europeans probably of Roman descent who converted to Judaism". It seems you guys want to just use a REFUTED article from the laughably biased "jpost" lol!^{— Unsigned, by: 71.81.126.31 / talk / contribs}

1. Being an anonymous account with an abrasive attitude is pretty much guaranteed to ensure that I will do absolutely nothing to help you out here. So get that fixed. 2. One study doesn't necessarily undo the thrust of this article, which is as much about the history of an idea as the validity or invalidity of that idea. If you want to talk about ways that that history has unfolded, and do it without the shitty attitude, we would be open to talking about how to do that. Theory of Practice "...and we do love you madly." 17:13, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Not to mention that this single study contradicts prior studies. More research will have to be done, by geneticists, and by us for the article.--"Shut up, Brx." 17:25, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Johns Hopkins University geneticist Dr. Eran Elhaik (along with Dr. Avshalom Zoossmann-Diskin) exposed the frauds of Zionist ideologues like Ostrer from Yeshiva "University" lol (Grinnell College and Duke University graduate Anthropologist Katya Gibel Azoulay, Ph.D. already exposed frauds like Ostrer as biased Zionist ideologues in her work "Not an Innocent Pursuit" [5])! This was so clear that even the Jewish website "failedmessiah" admitted the following [6] "New Study Shows YU Researcher, Others Appear To Have Cooked The Genetic Books To ‘Prove' Middle Eastern Origin Of The Jewish People When One May Not Really Exist" lol! And Dr. Elhaik himself notes "My research refutes 40 years of genetic studies, all of which have assumed that the Jews constitute a group that is genetically isolated from other nations," notes Elhaik.

And Ofer Aderet of Haaretz continues to show this reality lol.

Earlier this month, he published his findings in an article, "The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry: Contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypotheses," in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution, published by Oxford University Press. One of the scholars who reviewed the article before its publication described it as more profound than all the previous studies on the ancestry of the Jewish people.

And Ofer Aderet notes another humorous fact nobody he contacted was able to offer any response or "rebuttal" of any kind to Dr. Elhaik's findings. Which might be why the world renowned AFP news source gave a very definitive headline saying Dr. Eran Elhaik has settled the issue proving the Khazarian hypothesis true! [7]

"Gene study settles debate over origin of European Jews" (AFP, January 16, 2013)^{— Unsigned, by: ‎ 71.81.126.31 / talk / contribs}

I stopped reading when you wrote "lol." Was there anything interesting after that? Theory of Practice "...and we do love you madly." 16:04, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

The main interesting thing is you guys still calling this article a supposed "myth" rather then a hypothesis, when Dr. Elhaik has shown the Khazar hypothesis to be correct. Unless of course you guys are claiming you know better then the Agence France-Presse [8]! But then again you guys are also claiming to allegedly know "better" than a geneticist from Johns Hopkins University as well! [9]^{— Unsigned, by: ‎ 71.81.126.31 / talk / contribs}

I think it's more like nobody really cares. Especially since you haven't taken out an account. Probably nothing you like will happen until you do. Theory of Practice "...and we do love you madly." 16:12, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

You do realize you basically just admitted you are not interested in facts and reporting the truth i.e. when you openly stated "nobody really cares" about such little things as FACTS! Well at least you guys finally spoke the truth about what you believe and what the purpose and true goal and aims of this website is!^{— Unsigned, by: 71.81.126.31 / talk / contribs}

The fun of this is the idea the OP has that because European Jews settled in Caucus regions and inter-married (and are therefor not pure Jewish), they are not Jewish at all, even if his own article talks about how they have Middle Eastern ancestry.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 01:05, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Just a few of the relevant quotes from Dr. Eran Elhaik (here specifically from Ofer Aderet's Haaretz article from late December 2012 [10]). On Near Eastern background Dr. Elhaik; "The majority of Jews do not have the Middle Eastern genetic component in the quantity we would expect to find if they were descendants of the Jews of antiquity."

And as for what the background of Ashkenazi Jews primarily is; Elhaik "According to his findings, the dominant element in the genetic makeup of European Jews is Khazar. Among Central European and East European Jews, this component is the most dominant in their genome, accounting for 38 and 30 percent, respectively."

And following behind this dominant Khazar/Caucasus background, is again Western European background that Dr. Elhaik says likely comes from the documented fact of Roman "gentiles" converting (as proselytes) to the religion of Judaism in Rome in the first centuries BCE and CE. A good example of this; [11] (see citations 10-13 in particular). And then coming in far behind all of this is the small amount of Near Eastern/Middle Eastern background in Ashkenazi Jews that according to Dr. Elhaik "whose source is probably Mesopotamia". Mesopotamia aka Iraq is obviously different then Canaan/Palestine/Israel/Judea. ^{— Unsigned, by: 71.81.126.31 / talk / contribs}

Hey buddy, why should anyone give a shit? --108.180.91.182 (talk) 03:34, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Because of course, Central European and East European Jews are the only Jews. Whatever, even if this was true, which its not, who gives a fuck?--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 03:59, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

How "professional" you all are here with your cursing and all! Again facts, which you here are of course not interested in at all! [12]

"Gene study settles debate over origin of European Jews"

Jews of European origin are a mix of ancestries, with many hailing from tribes in the Caucasus who converted to Judaism and created an empire that lasted half a millennium, according to a gene study.

The investigation, its author says, should settle a debate that has been roiling for more than two centuries.

Jews of European descent, often called Ashkenazis, account for some 90 percent of the more than 13 million Jews in the world today.

I'm still waiting for you tell me why it matters at all buddy. Lets work off that you're right. SO!? --108.180.91.182 (talk) 08:38, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_on_Jews

Hey guy who's obsessed with this article.

I've left you a few messages on your talk page. Click o the big orange banner at the top of the window and read them. Also; On talk pages, please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking on the sign button: on the toolbar above the edit panel. You can also indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line. Thank you.. I'm not gonna do anything to help you until you learn to sign your talk page posts. Thanks. Theory of Practice "...and we do love you madly." 03:20, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I shouldn't have to sign in to make you want to care about accuracy in your articles. The fact this page is still claimed to be a "myth" just shows you are not interested in reality or facts! If the study by Dr. Elhaik doesn't at least make you change the title of this page to something like "Khazar hypothesis" you again just show your clear biases. And by the way this article claims the Khazar hypothesis is supposedly promoted by "white supremacists" or something when in reality most of those clowns are aligned with certain individuals (that Dr. Elhaik refutes) that claim Jews are a supposed "race" (race being an unscientific social construct of course). Some of the main academics who have talked about the Khazars have included Arthur Koestler, Shlomo Sand, Kevin Alan Brook, and now Dr. Eran Elhaik doesn't seem like a bunch of "white supremacists" to me. ^{— Unsigned, by: 71.81.126.31 / talk / contribs}

I will respond when you start signing your talk page posts. Just do this: ~~~~ Theory of Practice "...and we do love you madly." 03:28, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

"race being an unscientific social contruct?" - are you sure about that? Jerry Coyne believes races are biological and not social constructs Link :) Forests (talk) 03:42, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

The only people who believe "race" is not just a social construct are racists. And as for this page the fact it has not been changed from a supposed "myth" to at least Khazar hypothesis just proves once again your website here is not interested in truth. Which of course isn't surprising coming from you guys. Oh and again whether or not I create an account shouldn't have any bearing on whether you are interested in your website being factual ^{— Unsigned, by: 71.81.126.31 / talk / contribs}

You're not being asked to create an account. You're just being asked to type ~~~~ or click on the little picture of the blue pencil and the squiggle. That will make your IP address appear and other users will be able to keep track of who's saying this stuff. It's also become a piece of universal standard wiki etiquette. Spud (talk) 09:18, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Really 71? So Ernst Mayr, Jerry Coyne and many other evolutionary biologists are racists? The papers that you cite also discuss ethnic groups in a non social construct manner. You obviously have never studied the area you claim to know about. If you believe you are wasting your time here, then head over to the main wikipedia and see how far you get. Forests (talk) 22:15, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Jerry Coyne is prone to talking out of his ass on certain issues, such as this one. Jonathan Marks ranted about this post earlier. As for Mayr, let's just say he was a bit old-fashioned. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 23:46, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I poked around a little bit on Coyne's take on this, and it looks like he's using the word "race" to mean, essentially "population group" or some such, ie. he's watered it doen so far as it doesn't really say very much anymore.

Klyosov deeply criticised Elhaik article and assumptions on Khazars in his publication in the Proceedings of the Academy of DNA Genealogy, vol. 6, No. 3, 2013 ( available yet in Russian). http://aklyosov.home.comcast.net/6_3_2013.pdf

Other articles of Klyosov on DNA genealogy subject see here - http://aklyosov.home.comcast.net/~aklyosov/ - Origin of the Jews and the Arabs: Date of their Most Recent Common Ancestor is Written in their Y-Chromosomes – However, There Were Two of Them http://precedings.nature.com/documents/4206/version/1/files/npre20104206-1.pdf

Aside

The Elhaik paper probably warrants inclusion and some discussion by people who know what they're talking about. The BoN is a bit terrible at making the case, but the article itself needs a good look over. ^narchist 14:52, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

The thing is, this study, like, just came out. January 2013. So there's to be a necessary amount of inertia, both academic and on RationalWiki. Especially when this study seems to contradict other established studies. I say we mention it, but give it time to go through peer review. Maybe in another couple months we can give it another look. Unless we have a geneticist in the house?--"Shut up, Brx." 15:05, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

The study didn't "just come out", it was a preprint at arxiv since August 2012 [13], and was then accepted into the peer reviewed scientific journal "Genome Biology and Evolution" out of Britain [14], on the peer review of this British journal [15] under Review of Manuscripts "Manuscripts that are within the scope of the journal are peer reviewed". Journalist Ofer Aderet at haaretz noted the following about Elhaik's study and its' peer review [16] "One of the scholars who reviewed the article before its publication described it as more profound than all the previous studies on the ancestry of the Jewish people." And Elhaik's study then received a very positive AFP news story on January 16, 2013 [17] that was picked up by many different news sources around the world. The longer this page remains called "Khazar myth" rather than at least Khazar hypothesis the more ridiculous you all look. Also contrary to your claims in the article that "white supremacists" supposedly promote the Khazar hypothesis, David Duke has jumped to the forefront publishing a (weak) critique of Elhaik's paper done by a blogger back when Elhaik's paper was again only a preprint at arxiv in August 2012 [18]. This article should be completely overhauled to come into agreement with reality.71.81.126.31 (talk) 00:49, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

citations in Elhaik article: Koestler cited 7 times, Sand cited 11 times. Neither Sand nor Koestler are specialists in Jewish or Khazars history. Sand specialized in modern history of Europe and Koestler is engeneer and novelist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlomo_Sand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Koestler

Article has supplementary data. Excel file for Y- Haplogroup is here: http://gbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/suppl/2012/12/12/evs119.DC1/Elhaik2012_-_Table_S2_-_Y_Haplogroups.xlsx it contains: - European Jews Total = 856 - Armenians total = 57 - Samaritans = 0 - Khazars = 0

- 3 major Haplogroups from European Jews = J1, J2, E-M35 - 3 major Haplogroups from Armenians = J2, G, R1A

Elhaik quote from article: a caution is warranted in interpreting some of our results due to small sample sizes and availability of surrogate populations. To test the Khazarian hypothesis, we used a crude model for the Khazars’ population structure

A very clear link [19] and as for a professional review of Johns Hopkins University geneticist Dr. Eran Elhaik, Ph.D.'s genetic study [20] I will go with the actual peer-reviewed scholarly work there as well: [21] Highlight: Out of Khazaria—Evidence for “Jewish Genome” Lacking by Danielle Venton

Dr. Eran Elhaik's source list is long, detailed, and very professionally done.

Arthur Koestler's key point, beyond the historical and archaeological evidence from the Caucasus that has only increased since 1976 [22], was the demographics and how there was and is no logical way to account for the large population size of Eastern Europe Jews at the start of the 20th century CE (8 million) without the Khazarian hypothesis. Even today promoters of the "Rhineland hypothesis" themselves openly have what they declare the "divine intervention explanation", i.e. claiming a "miracle" happened, as the way to supposedly "explain" how 50,000 people in the 15th century CE can supposedly become 8 million people at the start of the 20th century CE by alleged "natural increase". That would again be requiring a birth rate about 10 times higher than that of the local non-Jewish population in Eastern Europe and would somehow have to have occurred in the midst of disease, economic hardship, widespread pogroms, etc. specifically against Europe's Jews.

As for you and say historian Professor of History Dr. Shlomo Sand, Ph.D. (whose 2009 book "The Invention of the Jewish People" was a bestselling, acclaimed, award winner [23])

[24]

Didn’t some critics accuse you of presumption in daring to write religious history?

The first book is not about Jewish religion and history. The book was and is about the Zionist historiography that deals with Jewish history.

[25]

Surprisingly, Dr Sand said, most of his academic colleagues in Israel have shied away from tackling his arguments. One exception is Israel Bartal, a professor of Jewish history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Writing in Haaretz, the Israeli daily newspaper, Dr Bartal made little effort to rebut Dr Sand's claims. Paradoxically, he dedicated much of his article instead to defending his profession. He suggested that Israeli historians were not as ignorant about the invented nature of Jewish history as Dr Sand contends. ...

[26]

Dr Sand attributed his colleagues' reticence to engage with him to an implicit acknowledgement by many that the whole edifice of "Jewish history" taught at Israeli universities is built like a house of cards. The problem with the teaching of history in Israel, Dr Sand said, dates to a decision in the 1930s to separate history into two disciplines: general history and Jewish history. Jewish history was assumed to need its own field of study because Jewish experience was considered unique.

"There's no Jewish department of politics or sociology at the universities. Only history is taught in this way, and it has allowed specialists in Jewish history to live in a very insular and conservative world where they are not touched by modern developments in historical research. "I've been criticised in Israel for writing about Jewish history when European history is my specialty. But a book like this needed a historian who is familiar with the standard concepts of historical inquiry used by academia in the rest of the world."

[27]

Other than that the only real "substantive" claim made is when some occasionally note that Professor (of History) Shlomo Sand, Ph.D.'s main area of academic expertise is the historical study of nationalism (and in particular French and European nationalism, think Rousseau, etc. etc.). But this attempted "charge" against Sand really comes to nothing as Sand's expertise in the study of nationalism actually makes him PERFECTLY suited to study Zionist ideology (especially as Zionism itself was invented in late 19th century CE EUROPE by Austro-Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl to start with). And of course as a professional historian Professor Sand simply quotes the relevant experts in a wide array of fields, such as his first book (according to his own statement) being largely started by Sand himself reading the work of well-known historian Israel Jacob Yuval debunking the still often brought up myth of the supposed (aka NON-existent) "exile of the Jews" (that again Yuval and Sand note never happened) by the Romans in 70 CE. See Israel Jacob Yuval's work "The Myth of the Jewish Exile from the Land of Israel: A Demonstration of Irenic Scholarship" (irenic referring to Christianity here and denoting that this myth of the alleged "exile" was actually a European Christian invention used by them actually to insult Jews and which Judaism as a religion, and much later Zionism, adopted for their own different reasons and motives).

And then finally from a 2008 interview of Dr. Shlomo Sand

Ha'aretz: Shattering a 'national mythology' By Ofri Ilani

"[a]t a certain stage in the 19th century intellectuals of Jewish origin in Germany, influenced by the folk character of German nationalism, took upon themselves the task of inventing a people "retrospectively," out of a thirst to create a modern Jewish people. From historian Heinrich Graetz on, Jewish historians began to draw the history of Judaism as the history of a nation that had been a kingdom, became a wandering people and ultimately turned around and went back to its birthplace." ^{— Unsigned, by: ‎71.81.126.31 / talk / contribs}

I'm happy that the article is legit. But the question is whether it does, in fact, lead to the complete overhaul of the idea under question? This has to be tacked on as recent evidence rather than as a complete re-write from the ground up. ^moral 10:12, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

This new study of Elhaik warrants renaming the article from "Myth" to "Hypothesis", as now we have an actual qualified researcher stating that it's largely true. However, its use by anti-Semites should be pointed out as well. ^{— Unsigned, by: 87.224.188.167 / talk / contribs}

The Elhaik study doesn't address the finds of the other studies. It doesn't account for the overlap between numerious Jewish populations and Samaritans as well as Israeli Druze as found in Behar, Doron M, Bayazit Yunusbayev, Mait Metspalu, Ene Metspalu, Saharon Rosset, Jüri Parik, Siiri Rootsi, Gyaneshwer Chaubey, Ildus Kutuev, Guennady Yudkovsky, Elza K. Khusnutdinova, Oleg Balanovsky, Ornella Semino, Luisa Pereira, David Comas, David Gurwitz, Batsheva Bonne-Tamir, Tudor Parfitt, Michael F. Hammer, Karl Skorecki1, and Richard Villems. 2010. “The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people”. Nature, 466: 238–242.

Elhaik uses Palestinians to represent ancestral Israelite genetics, yet other studies use endogomous indigenous populations which are more reliable - the Samaritans have been endogomous for over 2,000 years and the Druze since Medieval times.

Geneticist Razib Khan points out the numerous poorly reasoned assumptions in the Elhaik study: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2012/08/ashkenazi-jews-are-probably-not-descended-from-the-khazars/

The smoking gun for the Khazar hypothesis would be Central or East Asian genetics as occur in other Turkic populations. According to Khan “Caucasian component that is being detected in this paper may simply be a indigenous Middle Eastern ancestral element which has now been somewhat displaced northward in its modal frequency due to the expansion of the Arabs” Sumskilz (talk) 01:30, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Further reason Elhaik would have been better off using Samaritans and Druze as representives of the ancestral Levantine population is the female mediated sub-Saharan African gene flow due to the medieval sex-slave trade present in Muslim but not non-Muslim Arabs:

“Levantine groups harbor 4%–15% African ancestry with an average mixture date of about 32 generations ago, consistent with close political, economic, and cultural links with Egypt in the late middle ages. We also detect 3%–5% sub-Saharan African ancestry in all eight of the diverse Jewish populations that we analyzed. For the Jewish admixture, we obtain an average estimated date of about 72 generations. This may reflect descent of these groups from a common ancestral population that already had some African ancestry prior to the Jewish Diasporas.”

Moorjani P, Patterson N, Hirschhorn JN, Keinan A, Hao L, et al. (2011) “The History of African Gene Flow into Southern Europeans, Levantines, and Jews”.

http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/...l.pgen.1001373

“We have analyzed and compared mitochondrial DNA variation of populations from the Near East and Africa and found a very high frequency of African lineages present in the Yemen Hadramawt: more than a third were of clear sub-Saharan origin. Other Arab populations carried ~10% lineages of sub-Saharan origin, whereas non-Arab Near Eastern populations, by contrast, carried few or no such lineages, suggesting that gene flow has been preferentially into Arab populations. Several lines of evidence suggest that most of this gene flow probably occurred within the past ~2,500 years. In contrast, there is little evidence for male-mediated gene flow from sub-Saharan Africa in Y-chromosome haplotypes in Arab populations, including the Hadramawt. Taken together, these results are consistent with substantial migration from eastern Africa into Arabia, at least in part as a result of the Arab slave trade, and mainly female assimilation into the Arabian population as a result of miscegenation and manumission.”

Martin Richards,Chiara Rengo, Fulvio Cruciani, Fiona Gratrix, et al. (2003) “Extensive Female-Mediated Gene Flow from Sub-Saharan Africa into Near Eastern Arab Populations”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1180338/ Sumskilz (talk) 01:30, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not claiming that this hypothesis is necessarily true; rather that it deserves to be called a hypothesis.^{— Unsigned, by: 87.224.188.167 / talk / contribs}

Maybe, but I question the description of Elhaik as a qualified researcher on this particular topic. He has no prior experience as a population geneticist. All his previous work is along the lines of “Centrosomal Localization of the Psoriasis Candidate Gene Product, CCHCR1, Supports a Role in Cytoskeletal Organization.” Whereas the other studies I posted were conducted by very large teams of experienced population geneticists.

Clearly his work was peer-reviewed by geneticists but not historians. It’s his false assumptions rather than his methodology that lead to problems. He makes numerous mistakes like referring to Romania and Hungary as Slavic (pg 72). He can’t make the close genetic relationship between the Druze and Ashkenzi Jews fit with his hypothesis, so he claims the Druze must have migrated from the Caucasus during the Crusades despite the well-established historical evidence that the Druze developed as an offshoot of Ismaili Shi’ism in early 11th Century Fatimid ruled Egypt and the Levant. Neither does his makeshift explanation account for the genetic similarities between Druze and Lebanese Christians. And where does he come up with the idea of using Armenians as proto-Khazars, many of whom are descended from those expelled from Eastern Anatolia as far south as Antioch. The Khazar heartland was on the Steppe north of the Caucasus anyway. They only intermittently controlled Armenia for less than a decade, and then only through Armenian vassals.

Razib Khan puts it nicer: “Finally, despite the fact that I praise the author’s utilization of a wide array of contemporary statistical genetic methods, one can’t just do away with a thick and sturdy historical framework and reasonable questions derived from this superstructure… Instead, the author concocts a scenario of a mass migration after the Muslim conquest from the Middle East into Europe... In some ways to me this paper screams of the problem with taking a mass of data and using legitimate methods, and coming out with very specific results because of the way the parameters are set. In this case the parameters happen to be two contrasting models, and a neglect of other alternatives. This is unfortunately one of the primary problems with ‘hypothesis driven research’ in the age of big data.” Sumskilz (talk) 10:19, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

The blogger Razib Khan's "I don't think" August 8, 2012 blog posting was only attempting to "challenge" this preprint [28] "(Submitted on 6 Aug 2012)" NOT this peer-reviewed [29] final paper by Dr. Eran Elhaik [30] "Accepted December 5, 2012." As such Khan's August 2012 blog posting is worthless against Dr. Elhaik's final December 2012 study; and this is why Wikipedia does not have Khan's blog postings on any page where Dr. Elhaik is mentioned. Here again is an actual peer-reviewed analysis of Dr. Elhaik's final paper; [31] Highlight: Out of Khazaria—Evidence for “Jewish Genome” Lacking by Danielle Venton; Accepted December 20, 2012.66.169.28.205 (talk) 07:18, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

And as for Johns Hopkins University geneticist Dr. Eran Elhaik, Ph.D.'s credentials they are all easily found: [32] and [33]66.169.28.205 (talk) 07:22, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Linguistic Evidence

Would be a useful category. Yiddish is Germanic language with a lot of Hebrew loanwords. According to Shaul Stampfer of Hebrew University, there is only one Turkic loanword in Yiddish which comes to Yiddish through Polish. Sumskilz (talk) 02:52, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Leading linguist Paul Wexler is who geneticist Dr. Eran Elhaik cites: http://gbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/5/1/61.full "Yiddish, the language of Central and Eastern European Jews, began as a Slavic language that was relexified to High German at an early date (Wexler 1993)."

https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Paul+Wexler%22

"The Ashkenazic Jews: A Slavo-Turkic People in Search of a Jewish Identity" by Paul Wexler

"Two-tiered Relexification in Yiddish: Jews, Sorbs, Khazars, and the Kiev-Polessian dialect" by Paul Wexler

"The Schizoid Nature of Modern Hebrew: A Slavic Language in Search of a Semitic Past" by Paul Wexler

etc.184.58.25.125 (talk) 01:24, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

The Myth of the Khazar Conversion?

Shaul Stampfer also claims that the Khazars may never have actually converted to Judaism since their Jewishness is never mentioned in contemporary Byzantine or Russian sources and the Hasdai ibn Shaprut correspondence with Joseph Khagan appears to be a forgery. He lays out some of the evidence in this video: The Myth of the Khazar Conversion - Shaul Stampfer

But until he publishes something written it may not be worth including. Sumskilz (talk) 02:58, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

There is very strong evidence of the Khazar's conversion to the religion of Judaism http://www.khazaria.com/khazar-quotes.html

And Dr. Eran Elhaik himself writes in his study http://gbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/5/1/61.full "Finally, our findings confirm both oral narratives and the canonical Jewish literature describing the Khazars’ conversion to Judaism (e.g., 'Sefer ha-Kabbalah' by Abraham ben Daud [1161 CE], and 'The Khazars' by Rabbi Jehudah Halevi [1140 CE]) (Polak 1951; Koestler 1976)." That famous book "The Khazars" is commonly referred to in Jewish religious "lore" as the Kuzari http://www.amazon.com/Kuzari-In-Defense-Despised-Faith/dp/0765799707^{— Unsigned, by: 184.58.25.125 / talk / contribs}

Blogger Razib Khan's August 2012 blog posting is completely invalid as a supposed challenge to Dr. Eran Elhaik's final December 2012 paper

One cannot logically use blogger Razib Khan's weak August 8, 2012 blog posting to supposedly "challenge" Dr. Eran Elhaik's final December 2012 paper published by Oxford University Press "[34] "on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution." [35]. Khan's August 8, 2012 blog posting was only attempting to "challenge" Dr. Elhaik's August 6, 2012 preprint aka rough draft at the preprint website arXiv [36]; the link to Dr. Elhaik's arXiv preprint [37] "(Submitted on 6 Aug 2012)". The peer-reviewed [38] Oxford University Press scientific journal "Genome Biology and Evolution" clearly overruled blogger Khan's weak August 2012 blog posting by again later publishing Dr. Elhaik's final paper that again passed through their peer-review process [39] "Accepted December 5, 2012.".

If you go to wikipedia's pages that quote Dr. Elhaik, the talk pages of those specific wikipedia articles state exactly what I just stated and as such do not include Khan's August 2012 blog posting at all. And people at wikipedia simply noted; "let the blogger Khan try to get his writing through peer-review, like Dr. Elhaik did". Here is a peer-reviewed analysis of Dr. Elhaik's final December 2012 study [40] Highlight: Out of Khazaria—Evidence for “Jewish Genome” Lacking by Danielle Venton Accepted December 20, 2012.

Also in closing, people (on wikipedia itself) who have looked at both papers show that Dr. Elhaik's peer-reviewed/Oxford University Press published final December 2012 paper [41] is over 200 words different then his August 6, 2012 arXiv preprint/rough draft [42] to start with!66.169.28.205 (talk) 05:24, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

What's your horse in this race? Why are you so focused on this subject?--"Shut up, Brx." 05:28, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

My "horse" is the truth and accurate information; which I thought was the goal of this website.66.169.28.205 (talk) 05:30, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Sure, but frankly your attitude hasn't made it easy to collaborate with you.--"Shut up, Brx." 05:33, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I've simply put all the relevant information here; but certain people apparently just don't like the results of Dr. Eran Elhaik's study. This is evidenced by the absurd fact that this article itself is still ridiculously entitled "Khazar myth" rather than at least something like "Khazar hypothesis" (a title which isn't even as strong as Dr. Eran Elhaik's definitive study allows: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iJN90t2gN6hxGiFQuBv-gYQE060w?docId=CNG.52483183e4e0f60d963361c17572c848.81 "Gene study settles debate over origin of European Jews" (AFP) – Jan 16, 2013)66.169.28.205 (talk) 05:40, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

It's just that nobody here is a geneticist, and that the Elhaik study overturns decades of accepted research. For the time being, nobody feels comfortable changing the article to reflect that, at least for the time being. Now relax, and wait a while.--"Shut up, Brx." 05:44, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Ummmm I don't know what it would take for you guys then!! We have a peer-reviewed scientific journal article that world renowned news source Agence France-Presse (AFP) said on January 16, 2013 that it "settled" the issue [43]. The study is from a Ph.D. geneticist (Dr. Eran Elhaik) at Johns Hopkins University (arguably America's best medical school) [44]. And also to quote from the December 28, 2012 edition of Haaretz newspaper; in an article entitled "The Jewish People's Ultimate Treasure Hunt" by Ofer Aderet (a free place to read a copy this Haaretz article, not behind a paywall, [45])

"My study is the first to propose a comprehensive theory that explains all the seemingly contradictory findings," asserts the young scholar in a telephone conversation from his home in Maryland. The 32-year-old Elhaik conducted his research at the School of Public Health of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Earlier this month, he published his findings in an article, "The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry: Contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypotheses," in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution, published by Oxford University Press. One of the scholars who reviewed the article before its publication described it as more profound than all the previous studies on the ancestry of the Jewish people."

There has been no legitimate "challenge" of any kind to Dr. Elhaik's final December 2012 paper [46]. What does exist so far are again weak blog postings from August 2012 in regards Dr. Elhaik's preprint/rough draft of August 6, 2012 [47] that this peer-reviewed Oxford University Press journal [48] again overruled on December 5, 2012 when they accepted Dr. Elhaik's final paper into their journal. And then from after December 2012 all that exists are a handful of very pathetic blog postings by agenda driven individuals possessing absolutely no science credentials of any kind at all (one of them being a right wing politician/propagandist and another of them being a right wing newspaper editorial page editor and wannabee geography teacher).66.169.28.205 (talk) 05:55, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I love how people keep posting this random article as proof, but i haven't heard or seen any actual genetic data. You know why? because there is none. That guys article is from a long debunked Khazar myth and has nothing to do with genetics.

See here http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonentine/2013/05/16/israeli-researcher-challenges-jewish-dna-links-to-israel-calls-those-who-disagree-nazi-sympathizers/

No credible scientist takes that guy seriously. If Ashkenazi Jews were soooooo European, if they were sooooooo German & Slavic, tell me how are they so far from ALL of the Germanic and Slavic nations in this genetic mapping? Infact they only cluster with the Sicilians, and we all know why. Obvious mid east influence in Sicily and the fact that Jews were in Rome since ancient times.

And here is the mapping. http://i.imgur.com/vCuOqe8.png

^{— Unsigned, by: 108.78.160.202 / talk / contribs}

Interesting article. We'll have to look into it. There has been an anonymous user aggressively pushing the Elhaik study, and that is why the article is as it is now.--"Shut up, Brx." 02:50, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Eran Elhaik's study proves the opposite of what he wants to prove

First it should be noted that Dr. Eran Elhaik never really claimed that ALL (or even MOST) European Jews are descendants of converted Khazars - Yet alone "proved it". His only claim is that the Khazar Empire was a transition point were Jews from all kinds of places (including Judea, Byzantine Empire, Iraq, Persia, and even Rome) met, mixed a bit with each other and with local Khazar population, and then continued to East and Central Europe - As one can see in his Fig 1:

http://gbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/5/1/61/F1.expansion.html

Here are the real conclusions of this study - with a link too it:

"We conclude that the genome of European Jews is a tapestry of ancient populations including Judaized Khazars, Greco–Roman Jews, Mesopotamian Jews, and Judeans and that their population structure was formed in the Caucasus and the banks of the Volga with roots stretching to Canaan and the banks of the Jordan."

http://gbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/5/1/61.full

It's true that he does claim at some point that: "The Near Eastern–Caucasus ancestries are dominant among Central (38%) and Eastern (32%) European Jews followed by Western European ancestry (30%)"; And also that: "Although the Rhineland hypothesis explains the Middle Eastern ancestry by stating that Jews migrated from Palestine to Europe in the 7th century, it fails to explain the large Caucasus ancestry, which is nearly endemic to Caucasus populations"... However, a quick look at his Fig 5 reviles that other Middle Eastern populations, like the Cypriots, Syrians and the Lebanese, got almost the same amount of "Caucasus ancestry" (~15% - 25%) and a much-much higher amount of "Near-Eastern ancestry" (that would probably be Turkic ancestry - which would make them closer to Khazars than the Ashkenazi Jews), and even some amount of "Western European ancestry" (10%-20%) - which altogether means that Askenazi Jews got most of their "Caucasus ancestry" and a bit of their "Western European ancestry" in their ancient homeland in the Middle East...

Here you can see it all, in his Fig 5:

http://gbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/5/1/61/F5.large.jpg

Now, the thing I like most about Eran Elhaik's study is the part were he tries to determine the "biogeographical origin coordinates" (i.e. where in the world thy most fit genetically today) of Eastern European and Central European Ashkenazi Jews by comparing their DNA to DNA of other populations who live today in different places of the world... To make a long story short, he comes up with all kinds of coordinates in the northern parts of the Middle East - not even close to Europe... For example: The smallest deviations in the geographical coordinates were obtained with Armenians for both Eastern (38 ± 2.7° N, 39.9 ± 0.4° E) and Central (35 ± 5° N, 39.7 ± 1.1° E) European Jews... Now try running those coordinates on Google Maps, and you'll find that the biogeographical centers of Eatern (38° N, 39.9° E) and Central (35° N, 39.7° E) European Jews, are just a bit to the north and a bit to the south of the line between Ur-Kashdim and Harran - which are mentioned in the Bible as the original homeland of Abraham:

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=200194895895720439502.0004dcc0c441bff010f2b

Funny, isn't it?